SIXTY YEARS, TO LIFE

A monologue from the play by Nick Zagone

NOTE: This monologue is reprinted with the author's permission. All inquiries should be directed to the author at: zagonenick@icloud.com

(A prison visiting station.)

GWEN: Look what I brought. Surprise! A picnic! They said they’d let me bring this in. Look! A pic-a-nic basket. Like Yogi Bear! Eh? Boo-boo? Let me just set this up, EVEN though I know you can’t eat, I just thought it would be nice to take us back… oh, here they come. Well of course I know he can’t accept it, there’s a window between us duh! How’s he supposed to eat anything in that straight jacket thing anyway? Geez, cops sure are stupid. Oh damn I busted the crackers —now just get back over there officer Fratello, he ain’t goin’ no where!

Now. So I thought we’d have a little picnic just like we did on our first date, up in the park? Ya know, by that first girl they found, down by the river? Well of course you remember. A little cheese, salami, French bread, this is that good French bread, it’s from Safeway. And this is the coup de gracie. (pulls out bottle of wine)

Hm? It’s a merlot. Like… like we used to have. Like blood huh? That’s why the Christian’s drink it. ‘Cause Jesus gave his blood at the Last Supper. Cistercians and Benedictines grew grapes for wine in the middle-ages for the mass. Yeah, I’ve been doing some research. Proud of me? Now I see your eyes. No this was my idea, not the cops.

Look bear, you know, you know what they’re saying? Not the papers. Them. These detectives. Oh poop-bear… they’re saying you ate those girls. Ate them. They saw bite marks on… the bones. I told them that it must have been a critter or somethin’, a wolf, a bear or… but they said the marks, the in-den-ta-tions match your teeth. Now I need to know. I need to know now. You’re all I know, you’re the only person I can believe. No more secrets because…

The news is all sayin’ these girls had merlot in their stomachs and well, a heck of a lot of people drink merlot, so my boyfriend drinks merlot, and then sometimes I wash some blood out of his shirts, but that’s from the hunting trip he says and that’s what all that cured meat in the basement is, just deer meat, venison you say, and all this doesn’t mean my boyfriend is a serial killer, it doesn’t mean anything, none of it means anything, he just has a little problem, but eating? Eating women hon?! And don’t tell me I should be happy in a way because you didn’t have sex with them, that’s what one of those cops said, the little shit, but damn poop-bear I’d give anything at this point to just have a two timing philandering son-of-a-bitch. A cheater, why couldn’t you just cheat hon? A DUI! Holding up an AM/PM?! Why’s it gotta be eating human flesh?